1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a treatment apparatus for excrement of a rest room, and more particularly, to an excrement treatment apparatus for use in a rest room, which is installed at tourist destinations, camping areas, parking places, parks, outdoor cafeterias, devastated districts, and other public sites, to achieve continuous treatment of excrement as well as a great increase in treatment capacity, and in particular, to achieve a reduction of maintenance costs.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, public sites, such as for example, tourist destinations, camping areas, parking places, parks, outdoor cafeterias, devastated districts, and other sites, are mainly installed with a simple rest room. Such a simple rest room is easy for installation and movement, and in particular, is convenient to install at sites where a great amount of people are periodically concentrated. For this reason, the installation rate of the simple rest room is gradually increasing. The simple rest room includes a toilet and a storage tank mounted beneath the toilet for storing human waste-excrement and urine. Herein, for the sake of easy explanation, human waste is simply referred to as excrement. In use, if the excrement fills the storage tank beyond a predetermined level, the excrement is extracted from the storage tank by use of an excrement collection vehicle, and is transferred to a certain excrement disposal plant or landfill site.
However, the conventional simple rest room as stated above has several problems in that it has a bad smell due to the excrement in the storage tank and allows inhabitation of harmful insects, such as flies, which are a cause of various diseases. Therefore, it can be said that the sanitary condition of the simple rest room is causing great anxiety. Furthermore, some sites, where the excrement collection vehicle has difficulty accessing, suffer from a difficulty in disposal of the excrement in the storage tank. Also, the excrement extracted from the storage tank must be secondarily treated, and therefore, this results in an extra economical burden.
To solve the above described problems, various technologies for developing a simple rest room, which has its own excrement treatment facilities, have been studied. As an example of the related prior art technologies, the applicant of the present invention filed Korean Patent Application No. 0458291, which is entitled “NIGHT-SOIL TREATMENT APPARATUS”. The prior art technology disclosed in the above Korean Patent Application proposes that a lavatory is converted into a flushing toilet, excrement filled in an excrement storage tank is periodically vacuum dried and incinerated, and a rest room is provided with a deodorization function, in order to achieve a remarkable improvement in sanitary conditions of the rest room.
Now, the prior art technology of Korean Patent Application No. 0458291, which was filled and registered by the applicant of the present invention, will be explained in detail with reference to the accompanying drawing, in particular, with reference to FIG. 5.
Referring to FIG. 5, the prior art treatment apparatus for excrement of a rest room comprises: a storage tank 120 to receive and store excrement that falls down directly from a toilet 110 and to discharge the excrement by use of a submergible pump 121 after the excrement fills the storage tank 120 beyond a predetermined level; a recovery tank 125 having a pump 126 to supply wash water to the toilet 110; a vacuum furnace 130 to dry the excrement transferred from the storage tank 120 and to incinerate the dried excrement; an air tank 140 to discharge ashes in the vacuum furnace 130 to the outside along with air; a bug-filter 150 to filter the ashes discharged along with the air; a collection vessel 152 to receive the ashes captured by the bug-filter 150; a vacuum pump 160 to suck bad-smell gas and water contained in the excrement that is introduced into the vacuum furnace; a primary cooler 161 and a secondary cooler 162 to cool the bad-smell gas and water sucked by the vacuum pump 160; a reverse osmosis separation membrane member 190, through which the cooled water, having passed through the secondary cooler 162, passes, so as to transfer purified water into the recovery tank 125, non-purified water being adapted to repeatedly pass through the reverse osmosis separation membrane member 190; and a deodorizer 170 to remove the bad-smell gas, having passed through the secondary cooler 162, so as to discharge only purified gas to the outside.
In operation of the prior art excrement treatment apparatus having the above described configuration, excrement in the toilet 110 falls down directly to the storage tank 120 in accordance with the operation of an opening/closing lever 111 formed at the toilet 110. If the excrement fills the storage tank 120 beyond a predetermined level, the submergible pump 121 operates to transfer the excrement to the vacuum furnace 130. If the excrement is transferred into the vacuum furnace 130, the bad-smell gas and water contained in the excrement is first sucked by the vacuum pump 160, enabling the excrement to be dried. Then, the dried excrement is pulverized by a ball mill 135, and is incinerated in accordance with the operation of a heater 132. After completion of incineration, high-pressure air stored in the air tank 140 is injected into the vacuum furnace 130 via a plurality of nozzles 142, to transfer the ashes, which are remained after incineration, to the bug-filter 150. Thereby, the ashes are filtered by the bug-filter 150, such that the ashes captured by the bug-filter 150 are received in the collection vessel 152. To filter fine ashes that are too small to be captured by the bug-filter 150, a cyclone 151 is located downstream of the bug-filter 150. Accordingly, the fine ashes, having passed through the bug-filter 150, are able to be captured by the cyclone 151, so as to be transferred into and received in the collection vessel 152 along with the ashes captured by the bug-filter 150. Meanwhile, the bad-smell gas and water, which are sucked by the vacuum pump 160, are cooled while passing through the primary cooler 161 and the secondary cooler 162 in sequence. The resulting cooled water is able to be purified by passing through the reverse osmosis separation membrane member 190. Thereby, the purified water is transferred into the recovery tank 125, and the remaining non-purified water is adapted to repeatedly pass through the reverse osmosis separation membrane member 190. Also, the bad-smell gas, having passed through the secondary cooler 162, is transferred to the deodorizer 170, so as to be purified while passing through the deodorizer 170. As a result, only purified gas is discharged to the outside.
Through the above described operation, the prior art excrement treatment apparatus decomposes excrement of a rest room, more particularly, portable rest room, and deodorizes bad-smell of the rest room, achieving a remarkable improvement in sanitary conditions of the rest room. Furthermore, with the prior art excrement treatment apparatus, the recycling of wash water used and water contained in the excrement is possible, and therefore, a reduction in amount of water used is accomplished. In particular, the prior art excrement treatment apparatus enables effective treatment of excrement that is a main cause of environmental contamination, thereby contributing significantly to the purification of environment. In addition, since the ashes, which are generated by the incineration process using the vacuum furnace 130, are adapted to be captured by the bug-filter 150 and cyclone 151 via the injection of air, the disposal of ashes is simplified and also, disposal efficiency of the ashes is improved.
In spite of the above described several advantages, however, the prior art excrement treatment apparatus is insufficient due to the following problems. Firstly, in the case of the prior art excrement treatment apparatus, if a certain amount of excrement is transferred to the vacuum furnace 130, bad-smell gas and water contained in the excrement are first removed, causing the excrement to be dried, and after that, the dried excrement is carbonized. This vacuum drying and carbonization processes prevent continuous treatment of excrement, and therefore, result in a limit in excrement treatment capacity. Furthermore, the vacuum drying and carbonizing processes performed in the vacuum furnace disadvantageously increase an excrement treatment time while reducing an excrement treatment capacity, resulting in an increase in maintenance costs.